CHI99LA275 · Fairchild 24 C8C
Fairchild 24 C8C · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Hannibal Regional Airport (HAE) to Dacy Airport (0C0)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI99LA275
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Fairchild 24 C8C
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild 24
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N15345
- Operator
- Robert M. Reinauer · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hannibal Regional Airport (HAE), Hannibal, MOTo Dacy Airport (0C0), Harvard, IL
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Proper descent rate, not obtained/maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during cruise flight, at 3,000 feet mean sea level, he noticed a substantial amount of engine oil on the right windshield. The pilot stated that, approximately one minute after noticing the oil, the engine's rpm began to drop continuously. The pilot reported that, approximately two minutes after he first noticed the oil on the windshield, the engine began a gradual loss of power. The pilot stated that he positioned the aircraft into the wind and executed a forced landing onto a State Highway. The pilot stated that he flared 'as best as energy would allow and skidded 300' to [a] stop.' The pilot reported that the flare 'would not completely arrest [the] sink rate causing [the] gear to collapse.' Post accident inspection of the engine revealed a crack in the head of the number two cylinder. Cylinder number two's rocker-arm cover was removed, revealing that the exhaust valve stem keeper had become unlocked, allowing the valve to drop down into the cylinder's bore. The exhaust valve stem was found to be jammed in its guide.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to obtain/maintain the proper descent rate. A factor to the accident was the partial loss of engine power as a result of the exhaust valve keeper becoming unlocked, which jammed the exhaust valve.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI99LA275
- Event ID
- 20001212X19225
- Case number
- CHI99LA275
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0c453c4f2317d865161d126498412202769ea1c67b06406c53fbcff6def53938; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:22:36.775Z.